Passive income guide: Part 3: Methods - Books and Ebooks

Its been the case for a long while that anyone who wished to write a book would do the following. Create a pitch, serve sed aforementioned pitch to publisher, secure publisher, write like mad for several months then sit back and make little financial return. In that sense, I would say that book writing is a lot of work, and if you want to sell well, you do need to put that extra bit of effort and work in to make a polished product. After All, why should people buy your book? Why should they spend their cash on it, if their getting a 2nd rate or rushed product?

For that reason then, I would say that creating books (like blogs & podcast) are a high-effort and time consuming project. You need to make sure everything is spot-on, and the things you are saying actually make sense, and your not talking utter cods-wallop! But before you get that far, you need to nail down whether or not your book will sell.

Think about why your writing, how and what for.

There’s a few benefits to writing a book But, I think the main one to concentrate on is:

• To promote yourself (or brand) with insightful writing and content (and thus gain new brand recognition / customers / leads)

That should be your main goal to achieve when writing a book. Never, ever set out to write a book to make money (or at least as your primary goal). There’s 3 reasons for that.

1. You’ll be disappointed if book sales don’t meet your expectations
2. If the content isn’t up to scratch, you could actually harm your name or brand
3. Readers will always know if your writing something to simply make money. The content just wont attract.

Drawing from the above points, I’d say your main focus for the whole project needs to be the content. They say on the web that content is king. So, its time to start a coronation. Spend time creating genuinely interesting, funny or useful info for your book, and you’ll reap the rewards for doing so.

Set a deadline, but be realistic

I often liken self-initiated projects to a train hanging off a cliff. Its so precarious and at any time could fall. I guess what I mean is that side-projects can grind to a halt or stop altogether if your not careful. Few of us can dedicate the time that they need, so consider that before you even start writing. Clients always take priority, so as soon as something comes up, working on your book drops off your to do list.

So, what you need to do is yourself

a) time to work on the book, convenient to you (maybe after you finishing freelancing)
b) a fairly strict deadline, and then stick to it!

You might need to revise your deadline if its unrealistic. After All, its difficult to guess how quickly you can write, and what may spring up over the next few months, but do try stick to it if possible.

1 word: Research, Research, Research.

My dad once told me, “Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail”. And that is so true. Your going to have to take a long, objective look at your book idea. Is it feasible? What other books are there out there in the market? How long will it take to write? That type of thing.

You might consider purchasing other books in the same field (your competitors) and thumb through what they’ve done. Afterall, you need to put a unique slant on things, and give them a geniune reason to buy your book. Don’t offer a re-ordered version of a competing book.

When your planning you need to first deduce your audience. Define who they are. How clued up about the subject are they?  How old are they?

Anything you can find out about your target audience will help. Why? Well, it directs every aspect of the book. The tone of the writing, the level of detail you delve into, even how much (or little (if any)) jargon you use. This is where spending extra time researching will pay dividends when you released your masterpiece!

Plan what your going to say!

I used to have an English teacher who would force us to plan things anything before we began to write. She would hand us all a sheet of paper, and we could use it as we like, so long as planned that essay briefly, to give us rough idea of where we go with things. On the paper, you could sketch, thought-shower or just write items you’d like to cover or include.

Now when I look back on that, I think its such a genius thing to do. Instead of going off on a tangent, you have a kind of map to follow, a clear idea of where you want to go. That leads into the next point….

Now your writing, Pee on it

You heard me. Go and pee all over your work.

Wait…. P.E.E is an acronym! It stands for Point, Evidence, Explain. Another English teacher I had (I guess I was gifted with philosophical teachers) told us how he was fed-up of people making a point, but never explaining it, or providing evidence to back-up. Its a great writing tip. So remember, make a point, show your evidence, then explain it.

This might work like so:

Lets say your writing a guide to creating a blog, and you write something like this “Blogs make companies more money”. And???? That’s your point. You need to expand on that a little. “Chris Garret has indirectly sold his consultancy services and increased his income by 56.5%”. That would be your evidence. But now you need the how it makes companies more money. “By connecting with customers, talking to them on a more personal level, and giving them an all round more positive feel for the company and its presence.”.

Before I finish this section, I want to make one last point. Imagine if I hadn’t explained that title!

Proof-Reading

How will people find your book useful (and referable) if its badly spelt? It conveys little professionalism. So make sure you make good use of an appropriate spell checker (set to your region) and check it over manually. Then for good measure, ask a friend to read through it too. As well as spelling and grammar problems, be aware of any continuity issues (where the writing isn’t smooth and flowing) or anything you’ve confused. You dont want to be giving out poor advice!!

Actually writing the book / ebook

Now you have a grammar compliant, nicely written transcript, its time to get designy. Whenever I create any sort of book or PDF, I start with a really basic text editor, like Text Edit, Notepad or Google Docs. They allow you to focus purely on the content, spelling & grammar, and not worry about whether ‘that heading should be Helvetica or Rockwell’ (something which I find programs like Microsoft word make all too easy). For now, you can concentrate on the meat. We’ll add the vegetables and potatoes in a moment.

Compiling & Creating your book

When your happy with the text for your book, its time to pull together the content, fancy pictures and  an appropriate design into one document. Theres several ways of going about this. If you decide to use Lulu (an online, self-publishing, print on demand book publisher - mouthful or what?) you’ll need the ability to create PDF’s. You can do this via programs such as MS office, or using the free (and very viable) alternative, Open Office. For creating graphics, and the outer covers you’ll need photoshop or illustrator, which Im sure most of you have. You can download templates here: http://www.lulu.com/uk/help/templates. Then you send your print ready PDF to Lulu, and your done. This approach is really suited more to designer types. But dont worry!

For everyone else, theres Blurb. Like Lulu, Blurb is a Print-on-demand, Self Publisher. With a twist. Blurb offer a super easy to use, Free book making software. Available for both Mac & Pc. The editor allows you to select from several pre-made themes, dozens of page layouts (suited to anything from a photography portfolio, to a text only report). Once your done, just send your book for publishing (whereby it becomes available for sale on Blurb.com). Genius.

If your going for more of a magazine type production, then you’ll want to check out Magcloud. Magcloud is a US & Uk based service that again allows you P.O.D your very own magazines. Find out more at: magcloud.com

If your working with PDF’s to make an ebook, recent versions of Microsoft Office, or Open Office allow you to create professional PDF’s, complete with contents and page numbers. Just have a little play about. Selling digital goods can be a gray area, in that its very difficult to protect the file from being re-distributed after purchase. You may wish to try using E-Junkie, who offer a shopping cart and buy now buttons for use on your site. They also manage the secure delivery of digital goods, completely auto-mating the process. With many payment types supported, E-junkie will solve a lot of headaches for ebook authors.

Marketing

Now your books ready to be published & sold, its time to make a website & get marketing. If your not a designer, you might be best either setting up a wordpress, blogger or similar account. Then again, you may wish to invest some cash and get a really high quality job done, in which case, check out some local (or recommended) freelancer designers.

To take full advantage of the web, you’ll ideally want to sell your book online, and also have a blog. Blogging about your chosen topic is a great way to build up traffic & sales for your product. You could participate in online forums, guest post on blogs or provide a free copy of your book for a competition on a high profile blog. Other ideas include appearing as a guest on podcasts, and allowing popular blogs to interview you.  We’ll talk more about marketing in the future, but for now, happy Ebook writing!

What are your thoughts on passive income? What tips would you give other freelancers in writing ebooks? Feel free to comment sires’ and maidens’!